# Characters like Doc Holliday **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 23, 2002, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-like-doc-holliday/133531 "2002-10-23T15:47:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2002, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-like-doc-holliday/133531/1 "2002-10-23T15:47:00Z")
We watched _Tombstone_ the other night, and I’ve been thinking about the movies I’ve seen that feature the Doc Holliday character (I googled–there were 12 as of 1998). (I’ve also seen _Gunfight at the OK Corrall, My Darling Clementine_ and, I think, _The Outlaw_.) Doc seems to have caught the American imagination (or mine, at least)–a dying man, drinking to forget, a cool, cynical gambler and talented gunfighter (if you’re not scared of death, you’re calmer and a better shot) and an educated professional, but with his heart in the right place when it comes to fightin’ bad guys. (Doc was a real person and he may not have been like this in real life, but this is the form of the legend that is interesting to me.) The character seems so very familiar–before checking the list of movies, I would have said that I’d seen the Doc Holliday character at least a dozen times. So, I am forgetting something? Was the Doc Holliday character (or a knock-off/similar type) in some forgotten TV show? Was he in a book (fiction)? (If not, man, someone should write it.) What other characters are there out there who share Doc Holliday’s qualities? ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2002, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-like-doc-holliday/133531/2 "2002-10-23T23:52:26Z")
Probably about a million Anime heroes. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-like-doc-holliday/133531/3 "2002-10-24T00:39:01Z")
I clearly remember that Doc Holiday was a recurring character in the old TV series, _Wyatt Earp_ starring Hugh O’Brian and many Westerns on television had a Doc Holiday character wander into it at least once. Speaking from memory now, and that could be weak, he was on a couple of times on _Maverick_ and as I remember a couple of times on the _Rifleman_, at least once on _High Chaparrel_ (I think a two-parter). That one was played by Jack Kelly (formerly Bart Maverick). I think he wandered through Bonanza also. He was also on that made for TV movie about dead gun hands that live peacefully in a small purgatory-like town (I think Dennis Quade played him there) that was on USA for quite a while. As I remember he even made an appearance in the television show _The Wild Wild West_. I vaguely remember him on the TV Westerns _Lorado_, _Restless Gun_ and _Tombstone_. I even remember him on _Dr. Who_ and _Twlight Zone_ (or it could have been _Outer Limits_). I seem to remember a Doc Holiday in one of the Bob Hope _Paleface_ movies and just as vaguely I recall a Doc Holiday character in that Three Stooges thing where they went out west. Over and above that, he became a “type” and even those Westerns (both TV and movies) that did not call him “Doc Holiday” often had a character that took on the personality of the fictionalized Doc Holiday. So it is not surprising that he is familiar to you. By the way, I think the “Doc” in _The Outlaw_ is a totally different “Doc” from Doc Holiday. TV ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2002, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-like-doc-holliday/133531/4 "2002-10-24T00:52:52Z")
DOC was a film, starring Stacy Keach as Doc Holliday in the early 1970s, btw. Written by Pete Hamill, I believe, and full of earthy dialogue.